A dynamic system model of social conflict that combines attitude change model and game theory

Abstract

A social conflict often occurs during the course of a large‐scale and long‐term project such as infrastructure development projects, in which multiple parties are involved. Not only do possible gains and losses of interested parties likely conflict with each other, but also their attitudes towards the project may change dynamically over time. A mathematical model was developed to analyze this process. One part of the model is the attitude change model, which describes attitude change processes as a function of both the remembering/forgeting of the project and the social influence among interested parties. The other part is called conflict analysis, which provides a game theoretical description of a conflict of interest among the parties. In order to show its utility, the model was applied to the case of an infrastructure development project in which a river mouth weir was constructed in the Nagara River, Japan. The model could reproduce the history of the social conflict surrounding the project, but was also helpful in exploring a counter‐factual event that might have eventuated had the parameter values been different. A more general discussion about the utility of dynamical modeling is provided.